God promises us in Romans, unreservedly and remarkably, that `Sin shall not be your master!’ (6:14). Let’s absorb again just what that amazing verse means: There are absolutely no wrongful or destructive actions that we cannot, as believers, be set free from!
Well: how can we see that become reality in our own lives?
Last week we developed a picture of these chapters’ overall direction, Romans 6>8. Armed with that we can focus in: what really is God saying to us in Romans 6?
It’s a challenging chapter. But it’s surely worth working at, if full liberation from all our negative behaviour patterns is indeed what it’s offering. Let’s roll up our sleeves…
Let’s take the first of the themes we noted last week, from 6:5,6. We’ve been `united with Christ’s death… Our old self was crucified with Christ’ (NIV as usual). What’s going on here? This probably isn’t how we describe our conversion, left to ourselves. From our point of view there was simply a choice, a change of heart – and maybe we didn’t even notice it at the time, or even for months later. So why put it this way? Is Paul being unduly colourful in his phrasing? Or was something massive going on that we didn’t realize? What do these phrases mean?
Let’s start at the chapter’s beginning. Paul opens with a challenge, `Shall we go on sinning?’ His response is, very simply, that we can’t. And the reason is (he says) that we’ve `died` to sin (v2). What he goes on to emphasize is that we’re totally identified with Christ’s death for us, and His resurrection into new life (vv3-11). Paul illustrates this from the dramatic sign of baptism (v3), because, when we expressed our repentance by descending into that grave-like water, we declared our union with Christ’s death to sin (v10’s phrasing) in the clearest possible way. Because of this, continuing in sin (continuing cheerfully and unconcernedly, that is: Paul knows full well the struggles involved (7:19)) really is inherently impossible (cf 1 John 3:6); it would demonstrate that there has not been the repentance that is central to new birth.
But then Paul goes on to say something else: we have actually died, and it’s because of this that sin has no more power over us. Look at v6: `We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that… we should no longer be slaves to sin; because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.’ And he goes on saying this! `We died with Christ’ (v8); `We have been united with Him in his death’ (v5)!
The amazing promise of v14 fills out one aspect of this. `Sin shall not be your master’, it says – but why? – `because you are not under law.’ Our union with Christ – we who are members of His Body – means we are included in all the benefits of His death; and that death totally fulfilled and so finished with the law. (Chapter 7 confirms this: `The law has authority over a man only as long as he lives… You also died to the law through the body of Christ’ (vv1,4).) When Christ died, the law’s penalty of death for sin (6:23) was paid; and we, `embodied’ now with Christ, enjoy all the benefits of that payment. Sin’s most fatal result is dealt with; heaven is assured us! (Thankyou, Lord!)
First aspect, then: in the long run, we will certainly triumph! And that could be good news enough. Our being `declared just’ before God, freed from His righteous hostility to sin, is at the burning heart of Paul’s gospel; it is the basis of our `peace with God’ (5:1). Nothing could be more important. As Gooding says, without the cross we would face God’s judgment from the start of every day. But because of the cross, our sins are paid for; we are declared just forever, and nothing now can separate us from the love of Christ (8:35). And obviously our awareness of Christ’s costly death that brought us all this must make us want to live as His servants, and not – not even briefly – as the slaves of sin instead (the theme of 6:16-22). It’s a massive motivation for the struggle for holiness. (Lord, please help me grasp it…)
But isn’t there something even more remarkable here? Is what Paul says about our having `died with Christ` in vv5,6,8 simply a strong illustration (ie, you surely ought to be living differently, and considering yourselves dead to sin); or has something occurred – and not just an objective, longterm payment for sin bringing us freedom from damnation, but something else major too – has something occurred that dramatically alters the position as regards my battle with sin, right now? Do these verses give me any new cause for confidence as I wrestle with my negative behaviours? Something that doesn’t just motivate me, and call me to `struggle’, but rather something that’s already a given, something that actually changes that struggle, offering a guarantee (v14) of triumph now?
There is indeed; Paul – or God – is saying that something truly dramatic and supernatural has occurred inside us! Reread v6; surely it sounds more than just motivational. Rather, it says that something has actually died, been destroyed, inside us: `Our old self was` (not, is being) `crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be done away with – that we should no longer be slaves of sin.’ And this freedom clearly refers here (and compare vv17-18) to this life, not just the next (cf also 7:5, `when we were controlled by the sinful nature’); so the destruction of the `body of sin’ (whatever that means) must refer to this life too. Hence the joyous clarity of v14: sin not merely ought not be our master, it shall not. Something major has changed inside us, now. Paul is not just saying that our union with Christ should motivate us (although he does make that point too in vv12-13; we have a part to play in the process!); rather, he’s saying, in some way we have actually died with Christ, and therefore the sinful `old self’ has been rendered powerless, right here and now. Freedom from sin is achieved by the surgical amputation (crucifixion) of the old self. A real death has occurred; this seems pivotal to Paul’s argument.
It’s a strange idea, but it runs throughout the passage, and we need to pause to really take it in. Again let’s absorb these key words from v5, `We died with Christ’, and v8, `We have been united with him in his death’; and v11, `Count yourselves dead to sin but alive in Christ Jesus’. There’s a sense of certainty. It’s not just an `ought to be`, not just something we must struggle to attain to.
And there’s more. `If we have been united with Him in His death, we shall certainly also` – by definition! – `be united with Him in His resurrection’, says v5. This might sound initially like a promise of heaven after death; but is it? When we look more closely, we see chapter 6 talks of this `resurrection’, not merely as our future, but as something that was part of our new birth. Look at v11: `Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (a thought-provoking phrase?) seems a parallel to v5, but it clearly refers to the present; or compare v4, where the burial of baptism precedes our `living in a new life’, but that again is clearly radical new life on earth, not new life in heaven. Our death with Christ is our guarantee of being resurrected (and therefore that death must be as factual as the resurrection will be); but evidently what it makes available is not just eventual immortality but a dramatically new life now. Eternal, heavenly life starts NOW, from the moment we are `born` again…
Paul knows these are hard ideas for us to grasp: there’s a sense of stretching our minds, of a need for real mental effort, in `We will certainly…’ (v5), `We believe that…’ (v8), `Count yourselves…’ (v11). And he expresses these same ideas elsewhere: `You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ… you have been raised with Christ’ (Col 3:3,1); `I have been crucified with Christ; and I no longer live; but` – by definition, building on that – `Christ lives in me!’ (Gal 2:20). His past tenses are no mistake: `Those He justified He also glorified’ (Rom 8:30). That remarkable phrase in Rom 6:5 `united with His resurrection’ clearly describes something real that has already happened to us in this world, when we first `died with’ and became `united with’ Christ. As we see in the remarkable Ephesians 2:6, the eternal, heavenly resurrection life of being seated with Christ starts now, not when we die. (Thankyou, Lord, that my old self has died with you; thankyou, Lord, for starting in me the new life of resurrection!)
When we get on to chapter 8 it will help us grasp these things even better. There Paul talks in visionary terms about the whole creation being liberated one day from its `bondage to decay’, into glorious new existence. But then he makes very clear that it’s started now; this new life, he says, is something the children of God already possess, through the Spirit (8:21,23). Resurrection will one day swamp the cosmos; but it’s begun, here and now, in us! No wonder `sin shall not be your master’! Hallelujah!
It seems, then, that here in Romans 6 God reveals something unseen but totally remarkable that occurred in each of us when we were (to use Jesus’ thought-provoking, relevant phrase again) `born again’. On the one hand, God has not thrown away the person we have been; we’re still the same person that He created and has been developing, even before our conversion. But on the other, some fundamental, central part of our being actually died (6:6,8) and was replaced, at the moment when we became identified with Christ. It wasn’t just a religious change of mind, nor even merely an act of faith. There was something very central within us (`our old self’, 6:6) that couldn’t be reformed or cleaned up; it simply had to be amputated, and it was. We died; our baptism was a real funeral!
This is drastic religion. It is far more than a call for good behaviour. Our salvation leads to the creation within us of a radically new kind of being. (Even within me, Father! Thankyou!) `If anyone is in Christ’, says Paul elsewhere, `they are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’ (2 Cor 5:17). To quote Steve Goss, we’re not still `essentially the same` as we were before we were `born again`, and this is a fact that sets us free; our primary identity is not as `still weak sinners` but as `saints`, ie `holy ones`; this is fact! In Romans 8:10-11 the sense of radical transformation is equally explicit: `If Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness… The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is living in you!’
`The Spirit is living in you’: with that, chapter 8 will take us one vital step further. From Romans 6 we learn that we will ultimately be free from sin because Christ’s death has freed us from the law’s penalty; and, at our innermost centre, something has died, to be replaced by new life. At the heart of our existence now is something that can triumph over sin. Chapter 8 tells us what that `something’ is: `The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace’ (v6). What happened when we died and rose with Christ was that the Holy Spirit came to live in that innermost citadel. He could not live there as long as we were alienated from God by our sin. But now the law’s penalty is dealt with, there is `no condemnation’ (8:1); and because we are `not under law’ we can be `led by the Spirit’ (cf Gal 5:18). To be born again, Jesus says, is to be `born of the Spirit’ (John 3:6-8); the new life we were born into is the `new way of the Spirit’ (Rom 7:6).
`Led’ along a `new way’. What brings about our freedom from sin, then, is settling the issue of control: `The sinful mind… does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you’ (8:7-9). So here is the next thing that empowers our victory in the battle for holiness. Sin shall not be our master, because the law’s fulfilment has removed the barrier to God’s presence and power: therefore now, at the heart of our being, we believers are controlled by the almighty Holy Spirit. (Lord, I praise you, I welcome you!)
(I remember feeling frustrated when first as a preacher I began to grapple with Romans 8. It didn’t say what I wanted. Romans 1-5 gave us the gospel, I thought; these chapters, coming later, should be about our ongoing seriousness of discipleship – about whether we believers choose to live by the flesh or the Spirit. They seemed marvellous passages to preach for that, especially ch8 with its clear opposition between living according to the flesh and living according to the Spirit (8:4). But there was one snag: Paul isn’t talking in ch8 quite so much about the difference commitment makes, as about the difference conversion makes. Frustrating! But that’s just the point. If we’re converted at all, then we have the Spirit (8:9). It is our birthright as believers that promises each of us victory over sin.)
Fantastic! But let’s just pause to notice: the glory revealed in chapter 6 is the crucial breakthrough that we need to grasp, but it isn’t quite the end of the story. There’s more really vital food to come! Otherwise why would Romans 7 – `I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do` – come after chapter 6, rather than before? More next time….
Three PSs: First, Watchman Nee of Shanghai’s classic The Normal Christian Life is great on all this, even if he does overstate his case occasionally.
Second, when we speak of being `not under law` (6:14) and `dead to the law’ (eg 7:4), it’s good to recall that Paul isn’t writing a systematic study of the old testament law in all its uses. The law still has great value for us as a source of teaching and key principles; that’s why it’s in our Bibles, and Paul certainly uses it that way elsewhere (eg 1 Cor 9:8ff or 14:20ff, to pick just two examples; think of Jesus’ words too in Matthew 5:19). But when Rom 6:14 says that `sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace`, its context (vv11-18) is not so much about our being freed from the penalty of eternal condemnation; it’s about the present. Our death in and with Christ setting us free from law (7:4) means that, whereas we were trapped `under law` in a life of self-action and effort to live up to the law’s standard, now God’s undeserved, massive loving grace – through the Spirit, ch8’s theme as we’ll see – is taking us up; His strength in our weakness is making us more like Jesus. And this is a hugely different way of life, something totally different to the miserable struggle that `religion` can be. The law – even the best `religion` that humanity has ever had, because God Himself gave it – can only give external orders, where if we fail (6:23) we will get what we deserve; and a key thing we learn from it, if we really face what it says (`Love your neighbour as yourself` for example) is how little we can fulfil it, how desperately we need Jesus (Gal 3:24)! External `religion` is not enough, indeed we all need to be led beyond it! As John Lennox puts it: the law is a thermometer, showing us our sickness, which we surely need – but we need something else even more, internally, a medicine that will bring us full healing. And `grace` does that; the Spirit gives the internal power we need!
Lastly, I’ve said here that `If we’re converted at all, then we have the Spirit`, and 8:9 makes that very clear: `If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ` This is an important point, since it’s occasionally denied by some pentecostal teachers, in flat contradiction of what Paul says clearly here. (For example David Wilkerson’s splendid autobiography The Cross and the Switchblade – a great help to me as a young believer – speaks strangely of `receiving the Holy Ghost’ as something separate from new birth; as if we could receive one member of the Trinity without receiving the others.) (Being and staying filled with the Spirit is of course an entirely separate issue.)
